HR4RS stamp
Nora Fernandez
For four years, the Rey Juan Carlos University has carried out the Philosophy in Prison project. Learning to think, knowing how to live in various prisons in Madrid and Toledo. The main objective of the initiative is that inmates who so wish acquire basic notions of ethics and law that can make their stay in prison more conscious and light.
During the workshops, URJC students and teachers analyze the different realities of the inmates and verbalize the reflections that this situation of vulnerability awakens. Death, love, violence, empathy or moral conscience are just some of the concepts that lead the debates and activities, all linked through philosophy.
Those same concepts are the ones that Philosophy of Law students study in university classrooms, but as Delia Manzanero, current coordinator of the project, points out, "these concepts take on a new meaning within this unclassifiable situation that is the prison" .
After several years working on the project, “the most important conclusions we have reached is that what we do is effective; the philosophy is useful and it seems that the inmates cope better with the situation”, according to Marta Albert, promoter of this initiative. "Now is the time to give value to the interesting reflections that the interns make and to focus on the wisdom they possess," she adds.
Funded by the URJC Development Cooperation and Volunteering Service, this project is a challenge for the university's teaching staff and a great opportunity for students to dismantle stereotypes and get closer to a reality as stigmatized and precarious as life in prison.
To learn more about the Philosophy in Prison project and what its function contributes to social and university reality, this video summarizes the most important points of the initiative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5fULpaurqo&t=94s